Thursday, June 11, 2009

Kyle Cemetery is located about 8 miles southwest of Elkhart, Anderson County, Texas off Farm Road 319 that leads to Red Town. "The country road leading off 319 to the cemetery is not passable at this time, and I reached it by going through the private property of Mrs. Margaret Moore," stated Velma Kyle Dodd in June, 1985.

Karla Lang, Special Collections Librarian, a distant cousin, and a friend went to Kyle Cemetery iin the early 1990s and photographed 89 burial sites that included some headstones, but mostly depressions in the ground where headstones had been located, but are now mostly gone. The cemetery is on oil and gas lease property and is not available to the general public. Karla explained that they walked for over a mile through rough land to get to the cemetery. The cemetery location is very overgrown with brush and fallen trees. I do not believe that it was ever fenced and cows have possibly trod over it.This is the present gate to the oil and gas lease property where Kyle Cemetery is located.

Lanny Medlin, a professional Texas photographer and historian, shared pictures with me last summer through Karla Lang that appear at the www.findagrave.com Kyle Cemetery, Anderson County, Texas website.See: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cr&CRid=984275&CScn=Kyle&CScntry=4&CSst=46&CScnty=2520& for www.findagrave.com Kyle Cemetery.

Kyle Cemetery was established in the 1870s on land that belonged to W. R. W. Kyle. He was an M.D. and was ordained to preach by the Methodist Episcopal Church South in 1855. Others who have owned the land are O. G. Rogers, Dr. Walkup, and Ms. Moore who owns it now (1985).Evidence of the condition of Kyle Cemetery, Anderson County, Texas in the early 1990s.

The cemetery is located on a little knoll in the woods. Many of the monuments are in bad shape, and several are broken and scattered about. This old cemetery received its last burial in 1923.

Further evidence of the condition of Kyle Cemetery, Anderson County, Texas in the early 1990s.

Ivey Maurice Brinson, a second cousin recalls, "I walked through the Kyle Cemetery with my father, Ivey McRae Brinson. He is buried at Antrim Cemetery across the county line in Houston County. In the 1970s we went to Kyle [Cemetery]. It was in real bad shape with large trees growing at the graves. We were looking for my GGGGrandfather James Malachi Gray's (b. 1830, Alabama-d. 1922, Texas) grave marker, but never found it. I heard that Uncle Jimmy Gray, a grandson of James Malachi Gray and with the same name, and buried at Antrim Cemetery, had two daughters, Lura and Ethel Audry. They put a marker there after our visit."

James Malachi Gray (1830-1922) was born in Fayette County, Alabama. At the age of 19, he married Henrietta Elizabeth Williams in 1848 at Pleasant Hill (also known as Antrim Community), Texas. His granddaughter Genoa Gray is also buried at Kyle Cemetery.

Hello, Thanks so much for posting this. I'm Dr. Jeffrey Owens, a history professor at Tyler Junior College. My mother's brother, Jimmy Cleveland Coleman, from Elkhart, told me about finding this cemetery a long time ago when we was a gas line inspector. Elizabeth Matilda Knight & her first husband, Jacob Middleton Gauntt (from Henderson County) are my 3-grs-grandparents, through their daughter Louanna. Jacob died of illness in Arkansas in the Civil War, leaving 3 small children. Elizabeth married Dr. W. R. W. Kyle, and had several Kyle children. Louanna married Richard Bennett and died at age 30 after having several children, including Grover Cleveland Bennett, my grandmother's father, who was named for the first Democratic president elected after the Civil War. jowe@tjc.edu

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About Me

I enjoy being with my family with husband of 34 years, six grown children & spouses, 16 grandchildren, 5 great-grandchildren, 12 first cousins, and many other cousins.
I am a retired public school educator in music, education, and librarianship for 36 years in Oklahoma and Texas.
I enjoy researching my ancestors with genealogy and sharing the stories I have been told about their lives.
I love to travel and have been to the Arctic Circle in Alaska, the Sea of Cortez in Mexico, the southern, western & eastern Caribbean, Mexico, Belize, Guatamala, Costa Rico, Panama Canal, Canadian Maritime Provinces, & England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, & Belgium in Western Europe.
I love to read non-fiction with biographries, history, and historical fiction. My favorite series is Anne of Green Gables and books by James Herriott, the pen name vet from Great Britain.